Swindling and Newspaper-Advertising

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

It will have to be fought somehow. It will have to be conquered somehow. For it has grown to be a public menace, — this SWINDLING THROUGH NEWSPAPERADVERTISING.

What is the best method of contending with the menace? How shall the Public get at the Newspaper Proprietor and the Newspaper Business Manager who stand ready to take the money for every line of fraudulent advertising that is offered them ? Is there any means of punishing or restraining the man who prints advertising that he knows is nothing other than an absolute swindle ?

Few outside the journalistic profession have an idea of the immense sums drawn out of the public each year through the medium of newspaper advertisements, heralding wild-cat mining schemes, “get rich quick” enterprises, and the multitude of “stock,” prize-puzzle, and “development” snares. But of them all, the bogus mining or “investment ” device undoubtedly leads the van as a swift bringerhome of the coin.

The spirit and fibre of the class that patronize these schemes are represented in the words of a citizen from central Illinois, whose acquaintance I made a few years since, while doing newspaper work in Chicago: —

“Yes,” he confessed to me, in a burst of philosophical confidence, “I tackle every patent medicine as comes along. Been at it forty years, an’ I ’low if my ‘innards’ holds out, I’m good for a few years more.”

He was a member of a vast clientage, this corn-fed enthusiast, — the unnumbered thousands who will send on their money the moment they conclude that the particular thing is “well advertised.”

The promoter of a bogus enterprise understands this peculiarity of that portion of the public he seeks, and instead of inch items he announces “The RisingStar Ebenezer-African Mining, Development and Ameliorating Corporation, Limited” in advertisements that cover solid pages in the daily newspapers. This is the peg of the successful advertising swindle: Show the “come-on” that it is “well advertised” and he will throw in what ready cash he has, mortgage his house and lot, and then make himself a missionary for “The Rising-Star Ebenezer-African” among the army of his wife’s relations. When the wife’s relations throughout the country have been rounded up and have yielded over everything but their immortal souls, “The Rising-Star Ebenezer,” etc., goes into the hands of a receiver, and the divisions and brigades of maternal relatives — may think it over. The “ Rising - Star ” is never heard of again. Some months after, when things have “quieted down,” the promoter of that institution suddenly flares forth as the “ Wind and Water Promoting and Pyrotechnical Company” “controlling umteen million acres in Popotalego County, Salt River, Jumpingoff-place.” Again, the solid newspaper page. Again, what shekels the mourners of “Rising-Star Ebenezer-African” have managed in the interim to save or borrow!

In the course of a recent information quest in Boston’s State Street, the centre of her financial operations, I was referred to a certain statistician as the man who could, more accurately than any one else, give me the figures upon the annual volume of financial deals. To him, I put this question: “Can you make a guess as to the losses of Boston and New England during the past ten years in wild-cat speculation ?”

His answer was: “ I think I am safe in saying that if I should compute the statistics it would figure up fully five hundred million.”

And it was the Newspaper Advertisement that was the principal avenue of the takers of this $500,000,000 in reaching their clients. Of these miles of newspaper columns, it may be hazarded that at least one third were fraudulent on their face. Newspaper Business Managers accepted those advertisements, and Newspaper Proprietors allowed those advertisements to continue to be published when they knew, or criminally neglected easy means of knowing, that those advertisements were but the announcements of gigantic swindles.

What is true of Boston, which is a noted centre for financial schemes, is true of New York and Chicago, or any other large city. Incidents illustrating actual newspaper-swindling operations in Boston are typical. Here is one of the incidents : —

Some months ago, the Boston press was flooded with page announcements of an “oil company.” The men back of this “company” were known by reputation, or personally, to even the routine local reporters of Boston. One of these men had been repeatedly cited into the Poor Debtors’ Court. Coming to Boston, a few years ago, from a Western state, he had started his financial career in the East by mortgaging a piece of pasture land for a few thousand dollars. Then by successive mortgage raising he ultimately ran his string of mortgages up to $150,000! And all out of a piece of pasture land. Another official in this precious “company” had been a leading official in a swindle by which so many thousands were duped. — This for the biographical.

The Boston dailies ran the advertisements, which in ingenious and artful eloquence dilated upon the acres and acres of “holdings” of “oil lands” in a Southwestern state, the wells that were being sunk, and the wondrous prospects of “commercial oil.” The speedily acquired means enabled the promoters of this concern to page-advertise in the dailies of New York, Chicago, and other great cities. Money was coming into the Boston headquarters in an unceasing tide. The advertising was distributed over the country by a Boston advertising agency, and, as a rule, Proprietors and Business Managers of Newspapers were ready, and did publish every penny’s worth of this “oil company’s” advertising that was offered them.

Now, what were the facts regarding this “oil company”?

The facts were that it did not own an acre of commercial oil land, and that it did not dispose of a gill of commercial oil.

Any Newspaper Manager could have so satisfied himself within twenty-four hours by wiring the local correspondent of his paper or the representative of the Associated Press in that portion of the country where the “holdings” were alleged to be located. But — these Newspaper Proprietors and Business Managers did n’t wore. They did n’t want to wire. Wiring for that information was n’t popular! The advertisements suggested enough, and, bidding his conscience, “Be silent, little trembler!” the eager Business Manager gleefully rubbed his hands, and wondered how long the “graft” would continue. — It should be said, and said to its distinguished honor, that, of the Boston dailies which were offered these columns of “oil” advertising, just one Boston daily did refuse! Nor is that daily, which is, and justly, celebrated for its editorial and business office dignity and probity, a feeble and unprofitable sheet, but it is and has long been, with a single exception, the greatest dividendpayer of any newspaper in Boston. So there is at least one instance of honest journalism paying financially!

But what of the “oil company”? As usual, —after the “come-ons” had been nursed along from one variety of its “stock” to another, and every cent that the promoters figured could be wrung out was wrung,— the next ring was to ring down the curtain. A brief newspaper dispatch, one morning, from the “field of operations” in the Southwest told of the Boston “oil company” going to pieces, and the appointment of a receiver. It may be remarked in passing, as an instance of man’s sublime faith in man, that there still are men and women investors in this “company” who have hopes!

The above incident has been cited solely because it is typical. There was nothing especially novel in the way this gigantic scheme was worked. It was “the same old tune in the same old way,” and the typical class of gullibles joyously paid for hearing the inspiring strains of its favorite national air.